How A Balloon Could Save Your Life
by Bubblez-rocks-your-socks
Summary: 10Rose fluff! Challenge from Raxacorricofallapatorius. See inside for more details. WARNING: FLUFF. :D Rated T for innuendo


_**T**__**hey've just had a baby girl. They decide to go on a little trip… but some alien decides to threaten Rose and their baby, wanting them for slaves, because they're girlsand the Doctor is having none of it!!! **_

_**Challenge from Raxacoricofallapatorius. :D. I tried, I really did:P**_

How a balloon could save your life.

Rose held the gurgling infant closer to her chest as the TARDIS landed. The Doctor had become a lot better at driving her since Susan had been born – but they still tended to land with a bit of a bump. She gazed down into the infants big round eyes, the deep pools of baby blue captivating her. Rose was sure that in time her eyes would become brown – either deep pools of chocolate like the Doctor, or hazelnut swirls like Rose's. The Doctor smiled at the pair.

"Rose, you'll have to stop staring at her soon, or we'll never get to do anything. And you want her to see Scifnoinuerekili, right?" Rose smiled and glanced up briefly.

"Why do you always take us places with weird names?" She asked softly. The Doctor grinned.

"Because, the planets with the weird names are always the best!" Rose didn't look up, but she laughed.

"We made her." She told the Doctor, matter of factly. The Doctor smiled and placed an arm around Rose's shoulder, guiding her out of the TARDIS.

"So you keep telling me… not that I need reminding. As I recall, doing so was actually quite fun… particularly the cream…" Rose blushed, smiling. The Doctor placed his hands on her shoulders and steered her outside onto the planet itself. Rose gasped.

"Doctor…. It… It's _beautiful_." She breathed, and the Doctor nodded, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to him, surveying the planet that lay in front of them. The sky was a deep shade of pink, the sun a ball of bright orange flames, casting a reddy-pink glow over everything. They were standing by a pool of glistening crystal clear water, the light from the sun causing rainbows to glitter on the surface. The ground beneath them was soft, and felt similar to sponge, yet it was firm at the same time. Rose leant against the Doctor and he wrapped his arms more tightly around her, careful not to squash Susan.

"Why don't you let Susan go in the water?" The Doctor questioned softly, not wishing to disrupt the atmosphere of calm around them. Rose smiled.

"Yeah, go on then. But will you get her swimming costume please? This dress is too nice for swimming." The Doctor stroked Rose's hair.

"'Course." He murmured, reluctantly untangling himself from Rose and planting a small kiss on her head before heading back into the TARDIS in search of a baby swimming costume.

_Maybe, _he thought to himself, _if I'm lucky, Rose will go swimming as well and I'll get to see her in a bikini again…_

But his musings on a partially naked Rose were interrupted by a scream from outside…

"ROSE!" He shouted, spinning round and running out of the TARDIS. He flung the doors open and was greeted by the sight of Rose and Susan held in the grip of an apparently unfriendly species. The Doctor took in their appearance – they were large, in both senses of the word, with wide shoulders and arms that could lift mountains if the need should arise. Their faces were similar to that of humans, but their eyes were a sickly green color, and they never needed to blink. The Doctor felt his hearts skip a bit, and he felt sick.

"Ecalperif." He whispered, the word tasting sour in his mouth. He stepped forward.

"Let them go." He said, his voice dark and laden with threat. Rose stopped struggling for a moment at the look in his eyes. They were burning with rage, and she had never seen them so dark. The creature holding her let out a low growl that held just a dash of amusement.

"Why should we?" The Doctor merely stared at them.

"Let. Them. Go." He repeated, gritting his teeth. Rose was struggling again now, and when one of the creatures gave Susan a particularly hard squeeze, causing her to cry out, she elbowed the creature hard in the stomach. Of course, it achieved nothing, apart from making Rose's elbow hurt and releasing some of the anger boiling up inside her.

"Who are you anyway?! And what do you want with me and my daughter?!" She demanded. The Doctor answered for them.

"Ecalperif. One of the most sexist species in the universe. They think women only serve two purposes. They make good slaves and they're there to _breed._ They travel round the universe looking for women they can take back to their home planet. They don't even care what _species_ they are. And if they find a woman they like, they'll watch for her, wait until she's alone, and then they'll get her." The Doctor's words were dripping with disdain, and made his feelings around the Ecalperif perfectly clear.

"Do you believe our culture to be wrong?" Demanded the creature holding Rose.

"Yes." The Doctor said simply, although his voice still carried more than a hint of danger.

"And who are you to decide that? You who travels around in your blue box, interfering in any thing that doesn't match _your_ beliefs? Destroying planets for what _you_ see as the right thing to do? For we have been observing you Doctor, this woman is feisty and brave, and will make a good slave… once she has been tamed." The Doctor was taken aback. He hadn't even considered the option that they may have been watching them.

"And besides," Added the Ecalperif holding Rose, "It was two for the price of one. How could we pass up such a golden opportunity?" It was this statement that caused the Doctor to lose what little sense of mercy he had been reserving for the creatures. The way in which they referred to Rose and Susan as mere objects, and treated the whole situation as no more as a joke caused the fire burning in his stomach to burn harder, fiercer.

Rose could see the moment the Doctor lost his mercy. His eyes were almost black with anger and his mouth set in a grim line. It was the moment that the Ecalperif had made a joke out of her and Susan.

"Rose is not an object, and neither is my daughter." The Doctor spat.

"Rose is a human being! A wonderful, smart, unique, happy, feisty human being, and that baby you're holding is half Gallifreyan, and I suggest that unless you would like to meet an untimely end, that you release them _NOW._ I can't make you change your culture, no matter how obscene I think it is, but I can make sure that you release them, now _LET THEM GO."_

The Ecalperif made no movement, and the Doctor retrieved a round glass globe from his pocket.

"I don't want to use this, but if you don't let them go now, then I will." The Ecalperif reacted immediately. Rose felt the grip around her lift and she felt Susan being thrust into her arms. She ran to the Doctor and he hugged her as hard as he could without hurting the baby. The Ecalperif didn't stay to watch the scene, however, choosing instead to leave the planet.

A few hours later, back in the TARDIS and Rose and the Doctor were curled up on a sofa in the TV room. Rose had put Susan to bed some hours ago, and she decided that she would use this moment of rare peace to ask the Doctor a few questions.

"What was in that globe anyway?" The Doctor smiled.

"Helium. Completely harmless to you and Susan – just would have made your voice go a bit squeaky. But to the Ecalperif, it's deadly." Rose nodded.

"And they knew it was helium how?" she asked. Helium was a colorless gas – she knew that much.

"It isn't colorless." The Doctor told her, blowing one of the only pieces of chemistry knowledge she had thought she had to smithereens.

"You humans call it colorless because the gas is colored so far on the spectrum of blue, your eyes can't see it."

"But the Ecalperif can!" Rose interrupted and the Doctor beamed at her.

"Yep!" Rose rest her head on his chest, content, and laced her fingers through his.

"So, really, all I would have needed was a balloon? A helium balloon?!" the Doctor laughed.

"Yep! Something as simple as a helium balloon you humans seem to love could have saved your life!"

"Fantastic." She said, and the Doctor smiled.

"Yep, fantastic."

**Well? Was it good?! Bad?! Indifferent? R&R and tell me please? YAY!**


End file.
